dumbphonefandomcom-20200214-history
Blob platformer
“Blob platformer” is a sub-genre of platformers that is characterised by physics-based gameplay and a squishy and blobby main character. The genre is defined by titles like Gish, SolaRola and LocoRoco but it is often extended to include older titles like Bounce and Super Morph. History Morph (Amiga, 1993) Morph is a puzzle/platformer game developed by Peter Johnson and published Flair Software.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Morph In the game you play as a child who has been changed into a ball by a scientist. The ball can change between four phases either by going through a hot furnance or cold freezer, or by spending collected “morphs”. The four phases are solid (cannonball), elastic (rubber ball), liquid (water droplet) and gas (cloud), each of the phases can do different things and are vulnerable to different dangers. Although the game lacks the “squishiness” that is typical of the later games in this genre, the elastic and liquid state are pretty similar to them in that they allow you to deform, bounce and slip through narrow holes. The game lets you play as a kid who wanders into a scientist's house. The scientist leads him to a machine and pulls a lever; in that moment the boy changes to a rubber ball and the machine explodes, scattering cogs across four areas (lab, garden, factory and sewers). You than have to go through all the areas, solve puzzles and get the cogs back to tha machine, so that you can be changed back to the human form. Bounce (J2ME, 2001) Bounce is a platformer developed by Nokia and pre-installed on many of their phones. It is basically the rubber ball taken out of Morph and made into a separate game. While the game takes away most of the puzzle mechanics of Morph (which have been described as tedious by many) and focuses mostly on skillfull bouncing, Bounce still keeps the morphing element from Morph: there are pumps, which inflate you to a larger ball which floats in the water but can't fit through small holes, and valves which deflate you back to small size which lets you sink in water and pass through tiny slits. Gish (PC, 2004) Gish is a physics-based platformer developed by the indie developer Cryptic Sea (Alex Austin, Edmund McMillen, Josiah Pisciotta), published by Chronic Logic and awarded prices like Game Tunnel's Indie Game of the Year and IGF Innovation in Game Design.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_(video_game) It could be considered the first true blob platformer as the main character, Gish, is a 12-pound ball of tar which deforms based on a physical simulation. Gish can change his surface from normal friction to slippery, which allows him to slide through narrow corridors, or to sticky, which makes him grab onto objects and climb walls or even hang from the ceiling. Unlike Morph, Gish doesn't really focus on puzzle solving, instead its main game mechanics are traversal (something as basic as jumping can be painfull for an unskilled player as you first have to compress Gish and then stretch him in order to jump high enough) and slamming enemies. Still, while it might seem that Gish is very different from Morph, it carries the heritage of its modes of movement. When you wanted to bounce in Morph, you'd go for a rubber ball, in Gish, you have the regular, or solid,'' mode. Getting through narrow spaces which required water phase can be achieved with the ''slippery mode and reaching high platforms that was possible in gas phase is now replaced with climbing the walls in sticky mode. Even the solid cannonball phase has its equivalent in the Gish's heavy mode. The game tells a story of a tarball Gish living a happy life with his human girlfriend Brea, until one day a mysterious dark creature kidnaps her. Gish fights through several levels of enemies in the sewers of Dross until the final boss appears: Hera, Gish's former classmate who has an unrequited affection towards Gish. Gish rejects her, and Hera threatens to drop Brea into a pool of lava. After Gish defeats Hera, he must rescue Brea. If the player succeeds, Brea and Gish escape and become famous entomologists, as well as the world's first legal inter-species marriage. If the player fails, Brea burns to death in the lava pit and Gish goes on to live a life of celibacy, “volunteering most of his time to charity organizations that specialize in bringing lava awareness to the mainstream.” LocoRoco (PSP, 2006) LocoRoco is a game developed by SCE Japan Studio and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. In it, you control eponymous multi-colored jelly-like characters and lead them through the levels. The LocoRoco can jump, split into many smaller balls and reunite, and while they can't roll on their own, you can tilt the whole level to make them go in the right direction.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LocoRoco A J2ME port, LocoRoco Hi, came out in 2009https://www.pocketgamer.com/articles/013287/locoroco-hi-rolls-out-onto-mobile/ and while it removed the squishiness of LocoRoco, the other game mechanics remained. SolaRola (J2ME, 2007) SolaRola is a blob platformer developed by Progressive Media and published by Eidos. It is to Gish, what Bounce is to Morph. SolaRola takes the Gish's squishines, simplifies it so that a phone's hardware can handle it, and makes it into a separate game. The main characters, blob brothers Wiz and Waz are colorful variation on Gish. They can't climb walls nor alter their surface and the only creature they can bodyslam is a spider (a big one though). SolaRola changes Gish's dark and gloomy atmosphere for the bright colors of various sci-fi planets and his savage humor for lighter, silly humor, gently mocking the heroes' incompetence. Gish (J2ME, 2008) The 2008 port of Gish is a game developed by Hardwire and published by Pixalon Studios. The game's story is a follow-up to the original, now Hera kidnaps Gish's children. It is also revealed that Hera was Gish's girlfriend and that they robbed banks together. The simulation of Gish's and Hera's bodies was made simpler to make it both suitable for the mobile hardware and easier to master. References